


Wasteland

by lady_luck12



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop, f(x)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Implied Sexual Content, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of addiction, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, millennial despair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22089373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_luck12/pseuds/lady_luck12
Summary: They dismantled the smoke alarm ages ago. Removed the batteries and chucked it into the bottom of Jongin's dirty clothes hamper, only letting it see the light of day during the two semester inspections. It was easier than facing out of the window every time they needed a smoke. Jongin would be shit out of luck if it ever backfired on him, but he liked to think of it as poetic justice like the pretentious asshole he was. Soojung just hoped she wouldn't be around when it happened.
Relationships: Jung Soojung | Krystal & Kim Jongin | Kai
Kudos: 3





	Wasteland

**Author's Note:**

> This was written one night when I couldn't sleep so the tenses are all over the place and there's an overall mood of despair because that the emotion you feel when you're writing in the dark at 2 in the morning about college after dropping out. This isn't a happy fanfic.

Soojung looks up at the popcorn ceiling above her head, one arm propping her up. She turns her head and frowns, wisps of smoke curling into the air.

"How do you get addicted," she mutters, eyes trained on the plushest lips she'd ever kissed wrapped around the white of a cigarette. She was addicted to them once.

*

Warm fingers edged underneath her shirt from behind, reaching around and fondling her chest, as she kissed the person in front of her. It was dark, the only light coming from the shaded windows. It was fitting, as lips left hers, dragging along her neck, mouthing at her pulse, she tilted her head back and kissed the person behind her.

*

He quirks his eyebrow and tilts his head leaning back against the windowsill. "Is this rhetorical?"

"No," she says and laughs. "I don't think that was a complete thought. I think it's sad how you get addicted to things. I mean look at you. Twenty and addicted to cigarettes and for what reason, you thought it'd fit your aesthetic better?"

*

She's kissing him, balanced on his thighs, skirt hiked up around her hips, fingers stroking him through his jeans. Her lips are moving down, tracing his jawline like she enjoys when he grabs at her arm pulling her back till she almost topples off his lap. "Soojung let's break up."

*

"Better than being a little hipster shit. Vaping ain't shit."

"Really Jongin," she sighs. "Isn't it true hipster fashion to sit around with a cigarette between your lips like you're James Dean and it's the 1950s. Vaping tastes better. How'd it happen again? A dare? Peer pressure?"

*

She's beautiful, petite in ways Soojung never was and never will be. She holds his hand as they walk through campus together and Soojung just knows her hands are much more smaller than her own. Her hair reached her ass where Soojung's is cropped at her shoulders. Her skirt is short and looks like it floats around her, showing off her thin pale thighs. She looks like she was fucking born in a skirt. Fuck her. Fuck him. Fuck both of them.

*

"I made the decision," Jongin answers.

"Yeah," Soojung presses, sitting up and taking another drag from her Juul. "But why? You've seen all the commercials. The after-school specials. The 'this is your lungs after tobacco' pictures in health class. Why'd you start smoking?"

Jongin runs his hands through his thick dark hair and looks back towards his window. The sun has long set and he has the shittest view there, there's nothing but the dorm's parking lot outside of his window.

*

Soojung doesn't know why she agreed to it. She could have called him an Uber. Could have just ignored the 3:43am phone call like she was supposed to do, but she'd decided to pick up. Jongin's got his knees drawn to his chest and he's crying like a baby, sitting on the curb of the street. Maybe a car will jump it and strike them both. He keeps crying and hiccuping and muttering, "Fuck, I'm gay." Over and over again. Soojung doesn't have the emotional capacity to deal with this, not at 4 in the morning. Not when it's her ex-boyfriend. She takes a seat beside him, wants to believe she sees headlights coming closer but the street's deserted.

"You know what, Jongin? Fuck you." The words get muffled with a tired yawn."You inconsiderate bastard."

*

"Why'd you," Jongin asks, evenly.

"Someone told me it tastes like candy and let me try. You know I have a sweet tooth."

"I was out with a few friends on a cold night. Cigarettes knock the chill off just a bit."

*

Jongin shifts awkwardly on his feet, his hands are shoved in his pockets so his shoulders are hunched together. So he's hunched into himself. He looks at her, eyebrows furrowed and lips set into a grimace. "You won't tell anyone will you," he whispers, leaning forward but not crossing the threshold. It's been a week since she last saw him. A week since she'd woken up in the dorm's common room alone to the noises of students heading to their morning classes.

"A little late to be asking that don't you think?" Jongin's face contorts further like he's eaten the sourest lemon. It's ugly. "I haven't said anything and I won't."

It's the magic words to have his face relaxing into a more neutral expression. "I know you... I know it's not like you had a choice in the matter, Born This Way, and all. I didn't turn you, you know, and I couldn't turn you the other direction." Her eyebrows draw together and she frowns. She's confusing herself. 'but just... If you knew, why'd you choose me?"

Jongin's eyes soften and she hates it. He frowns and she hates it more. "You're pretty and we get on well. I thought if I could fall in love with any girl, it would be you."

*

"See? It's something so simple and yet look at us now?" She lays back down and Jongin turns towards her.

"I'm quitting school," Jongin says.

"Wow," Soojung says voice devoid of emotion. "Fuck you." She closes her eyes. She can hear a door close and deep male voices. It's a Tuesday night, a party night for college kids. "I probably am too. This year has been kicking my ass."

*

"Have you ever had thoughts of harming yourself?" Soojung doesn't meet the woman's eyes. She fidgets in her seat, tugging her hair behind her ear and then pulling at her ear. Will she be committed?

"Yeah, I've fantasized about it once or twice. You know, just taking my razor and breaking the blade off it. I never did anything, but I did throw my razor in the trash and set up this appointment."

She doesn't say her razor was in two parts when she tossed it in the trash. She doesn't say "I'm trying to get better." She is but it feels like asking too much too soon. She doesn't say "Please don't commit me." If this was a TV show she'd be asked to expand on why she thinks she shouldn't be committed and she doubts the crippling fear of her family finding out that she's fucked in the brain and failing all her classes will do anything besides getting her committed.

*

"Did you hear about Irene," Soojung asks, as Jongin settles in the bed across from her. His roommate transferred last year, they told him he might get a new one, but the lucky bastard was still without one in April.

"Did she really OD," Jongin asks. Soojung tries and fails to shrug from her position on his former roommate's bed. Irene lived in the dorm across the hall and two doors down from her. She heard the sirens and the rumors but that was all.

"She's not coming back, her parents took all her shit."

"Damn," Jongin mutters, and that pretty much sums it up for Soojung.

It could have been any one of them, ushered out on a stretcher and the talk of campus. Soojung knows that when she jokes a death because of exams, and stress she's only half-joking. They don't write about this shit in the brochures. The teachers don't bother to tell you about the crippling depression, the isolation, the fucking anxiety waking up and walking into class can bring. They're too busy shaming you for your shitty grades and telling you if you don't aim higher, if you don't do better, you're going to be arguing with shitty customers that treat fast-food workers like the shit on their shoe. Fuck them too.


End file.
